A SAMPLE NIH GRANT APPLICATION -- ON-LINE
SHOULD I INCLUDE A COVER LETTER WITH MY NIH GRANT APPLICATION?
WHAT DO ALL OF THOSE NUMBERS AND LETTERS IN AN NIH APPLICATION NUMBER MEAN?
WHAT DO ALL OF THOSE NIH ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS MEAN?
For general Grantsmanship information, use the following links to check out the Proposal Development pages of the MUOT Research Office Web site:In addition, we strongly recommend that all applicants familiarize themselves with the MUOT Sponsored Projects Policy at the time of proposal preparation. A copy of this policy may be obtained using the following link: <http://www.meduohio.edu/research/mco_policies/03-001.pdf>.ScienceCareers has published a multi-part feature on Grantsmanship entitled "How Not to Kill a Grant Application." An index to this series, as well as other articles on grant writing, is available at the following URL:
Many federal Program Announcements refer to a federal initiative entitled "Healthy People 2010". A copy of this document may be obtained via the following link: <http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/>.
GUIDE TO WRITING GRANT PROPOSALS FOR CLINICAL RESEARCH
Although billed as a guide to writing proposals for clinical research, this article from the February, 2005 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine will be of interest to all NIH applicants. Primarily focusing on NIH applications, it describes specific problems that grant reviewers frequently identify in their critiques and shows how to avoid these problems. To access the article, use this link <http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/142/4/274.pdf >. [NOTE: This link may not work for non-MUOT users]
The NIH Office of Extramural Research has a web page with links to a number of Grant Writing resources made available by various NIH Institutes & Centers <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/grant_tips.htm>. Although these may contain a few Institute-specific items, the information contained in these resources is applicable NIH-wide, since the grant-making process is essentially identical in all NIH Institutes & Centers. Direct links to some of these individual resources may be found below:
Center for Scientific Review (CSR)
"Submission and Assignment Process" <http://www.csr.nih.gov/EVENTS/AssignmentProcess.htm>
"Review Guidelines" <http://www.csr.nih.gov/guidelines/guidelines.htm>
[In this last document you also will find a section entitled "Guidelines for Study Section Reviewers and Chairs" and another entitled "Guidelines for Review of Specific Grant Applications." Understanding these guidelines could be very helpful in constructing a successful proposal. For example, the Guide to Reviewers for R01 applications may be accessed directly via the following link: <http://www.csr.nih.gov/CDG/CD%20Guidelines/r01.pdf>]
What Goes on in a NIH Study Section Meeting?
The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) has produced a video of a mock study section meeting: "Inside the NIH Grant Review Process." It is an introduction for both applicants and new reviewers to the NIH peer review system. The video also provides information on what applicants can do to improve their applications. The video may be viewed in streaming media via the Web. Go to the following address for more information and to download the video: <http://www.csr.nih.gov/video/video.asp>.
Other Useful Resources from CSR
Resources for Applicants <http://www.csr.nih.gov/resources.htm>
What Happens to Your Application? <http://www.csr.nih.gov/REVIEW/peerrev.htm>
Overview of the Peer Review Process <http://www.csr.nih.gov/Welcome/Grant_Application.htm>
CSR Scoring Procedure <http://www.csr.nih.gov/review/scoringprocedure.htm>
Frequently Asked Questions About Submitting an Application <http://www.csr.nih.gov/Welcome/FAQ.htm>
Policy, Procedure, and Review Guidelines <http://www.csr.nih.gov/review/policy.asp>
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
"Quick Guide to Grant Applications" <http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/extra/extdocs/gntapp.htm>
"Preparing Grant Applications" <http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/extra/extdocs/apprep.htm>
"Everything You Wanted to Know About the NCI Grants Process" <http://www3.cancer.gov/admin/gab/02gpb/nci_grants_bk.pdf>
[This last item contains an excellent description of the path of a NIH application through the review process]
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Frequently Asked Questions regarding the NIH proposal process <http://www.nida.nih.gov/OEA/OEAFAQ.html>
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
"Tips for New NIH Grant Applicants" <http://www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/tips.html>
National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
"All About Grants "at <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/default.htm
[This site currently has several training modules including, "Grant Application Basics," "How to Plan a Grant Application," "How to Write a Grant Application," and "How to Write a Human Subjects Application" ]
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
"Common Mistakes in NIH Applications" <http://www.ninds.nih.gov/funding/grantwriting_mistakes.htm>
WHAT DO ALL OF THOSE NUMBERS AND LETTERS IN AN NIH APPLICATION NUMBER MEAN?
Upon receipt of a grant/contract application, NIH assigns it an Identification Number. If the application is funded and extends over multiple years, some components of the identification number change each year and some do not. What do these numbers mean? The answer is found in a 70+ page NIH document entitled "IMPAC" (for Information for Management, Planning, Analysis, and Coordination). A few pages from that document provide your answer to the above question <http://www.meduohio.edu/research/impac_partial.pdf>. If this is not enough, and you want to read the entire document, it is available via the following link: <http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/ac.pdf>.
SHOULD I INCLUDE A COVER LETTER WITH MY NIH GRANT APPLICATION?
In some cases, DEFINITELY, in other cases, it's up to the PI. The following document should provide some guidance: <http://www.meduohio.edu/research/application_cover_letter.pdf>.
Few individuals have as much experience in the NIH review process as the Scientific Review Administrators (SRA) that work in the NIH Center for Scientific Review, that division of NIH under which most study sections function. For this reason, they are in an excellent position to provide "words of wisdom" to applicants on a number of issues that might arise during the review of their applications. We have compiled advice offered by a number of SRAs over the years into a single document that we feel provides good general advice to applicants on a variety of issues that commonly arise during the review process. This document is available via the following link: <http://www.meduohio.edu/research/sra_wisdom.pdf>.
NIH will return applications without review if they do not meet required format specifications. If that happens, you cannot resubmit until the next receipt date. At issue are items such as type size, page limits, and margins, all of which are specified in the grant application kit. Prompting the change have been complaints from reviewers about their difficulty reading proposals with small type and other formatting anomalies. See the NIH Guide at <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-01-012.html> for more details on this matter. For information regarding required formatting of NIH proposals, NIH has established a web page entitled "FAQ About the Format of Grant Applications" <http://www.format.nih.gov/FAQ/FAQ.htm>.
How do you need to address the use of human subjects in your NIH proposal? A quick read of a document entitled "NIH Instructions to Reviewers for Evaluating Research Involving Human Subjects in Grant and Cooperative Agreement Applications" <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/hs_review_inst.pdf> will provide some guidance regarding what reviewers are instructed to look for in applications. In addition, NIAID provides a resource entitled "How to Write a Human Subjects Application" <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/clinical/humansubjects/hs_01.htm>that may be helpful in this regard.
Recently, the following important reminder has been attached to many NIH Study Section Assignment notices: <http://www.meduohio.edu/research/nih_hum-anim_notice.pdf>. This reminder suggests double checking a number of items associated with the use of Human and/or Animal Subjects. The first paragraph of this document reads as follows:
"Please check your recently submitted grant application to ensure that it conforms to NIH policies regarding human and animal subjects. Detailed instructions about these policies can be found at <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/hum_anim_notice.pdf>. If you find that some information is missing, you have 15 working days from the mailing date of the notice of study section assignment to provide the required information."
NIAID maintains a web page to assist investigators who are writing NIH proposals for studies which involve research animals. The table of contents for the HTML version of this document is available at <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/clinical/researchanimals/tutorial/index.htm>.
We urge all applicants to read this information to ensure that all required information is included in their proposal. It is much easier and safer to address these matters in the original application than to have to send additional material to the SRA and risk the possibility that it may not find its way to the reviewers in a timely manner.
A SAMPLE NIH GRANT APPLICATION -- ON-LINE
Many applicants asked for it, and now NIAID has provided it: a complete, online Annotated R01 grant application <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/app/default.htm>.
Dr. Mark Smeltzer, associate professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, has generously permitted NIAID to share with you the outstanding basic science grant application he wrote as a new investigator in 1998.
Plus, the NIAID scientific staff has annotated the application, showing what makes it so strong and how it reflects the advice in the NIAID "All About Grants" tutorials <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/default.htm>.
NIAID's only editorial changes were to update the application with a modular budget and other revised forms following the PHS 398 Grant Application revised May 2001. Use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF.
WHAT DO ALL OF THOSE NIH ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS MEAN?
Confused by the terms and acronyms frequently used by people talking about NIH applications and funded grants? Now there is help for you. Check out the Glossary of NIH Funding & Policy Terms and Acronyms provided by NIAID <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/glossary/default6.htm>.
Page Updated: 11/21/2005
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